Hi everyone! Thanks for checking into this Dev Log! Got a lot done this week, and I have some stuff I'm really happy to give updates about.
TL:DR - Language support is now in and with it the GUI has been updated a bit, and The Library stage is ~85% done.
Below is the full story:
Update - I have some really good news this week! Language support is now in the game, and once all of the dialogue text is in the game I can send the files out and have them translated. So how did I do this you ask? Well to start off, I'm using the LitJson C# library for reading in the JSON files that contain the text for the game. As of right now, one of the files looks like below:
{
"english": {
"credits": "Credits",
"load": "Load",
"options": "Options",
"play": "Play",
"player_info": "Player Info",
"quit": "Quit",
"save": "Save",
"video": "Video",
"volume": "Volume"
}
}
What this allows me to do is store all of the strings for text in a JSON file, rather than hard-coding it into the GUI itself. From here I wrote a couple scripts that load the JSON (JSONLoader.cs), allows me to search for what I'm looking for, and update/refresh the text on the GUI itself and is pictured above (TextChanger.cs). It works because the JSONLoader knows the language, and the field is using the dot-notation to traverse the object until it finds the value. It'll replace the string where the text is with "ERROR" if it can't find the proper JSON.
This will save a lot of time going forward since I don't have to re-code GUIs for different languages as long as the text can be formatted into a simple JSON file. In doing this I also updated parts of the level select GUI to get things working properly.
Now that that's out of the way, what else did I get done? To start, I tried to get more of The Library level spriting finished. I'm slowly starting to dislike how much work it takes to sprite a level, especially when I have sprites that are tiny that I have to fill in the gaps with. I may be doing it incorrectly, so if anyone has any tips on how to sprite faster I'd love to hear them!
Besides that, I've started working on designs for some of the other element, levels, and the new logo. So lots of things in the works! It's crazy to think that I've made it this far after ~2 months of development.
What's Next - There are a couple things on my to-do list that I'm going to try and get done this next week. I'm hoping to finalize The Library's ground so it's possible to make it from start to finish all in one go. From there, I'm hoping to start on some level design, especially since I have more ideas after working through the GDD, and maybe work on some more character art. I might also do a pass and fix any little bugs and get some more of the GUI art in. All of this is stuff that has been pushed to the side and really just needs to get done...
That should do it for this Dev Log, and if you have any ideas for things in-game I'd love to hear them.
Catch ya next time!
-TJ
